グテン・モルニンゲン・ツザッメン！！！
In case any of you stumbled upon the final month of lessons with a certain Bidoof…
…who managed to make it to level 60, then reset, and climbed to level 23 four years later (does this make me level 83? I wonder 
), I was thinking back and forth whether I should start another study thread, as I need some accountability partners and I need to get myself excited in the language once again as well ^^
Japanese advancements since then!
I had a very long break from WaniKani, and I wasn’t even thinking of looking back. I was significantly burned out, while not having burned the items yet, and I wanted to move on and do something else in life. For a year or something, I did absolutely nothing in regards to my language study, then I signed up for N3 in 2022 in Düsseldorf, had a very unhealthy binge session ahead of it, managed to barely pass it and I was like, yep, that’s enough.
Over the course of 2023 I was having a few bouts and thought about getting back to it, but then I found it really hard to connect to the content I was consuming, so I decided not to bite.
At the beginning of 2024 I remembered that motivation follows training, and not the other way around, so I finally got myself a physical copy of Tobira, as not having finished it was one of my bigger regrets, and paired it with an Anki deck for all of the vocab in Tobira. I finished the deck somewhere in June.
After that, me and my friend decided to both sign up for JLPT together: she would do N4, while I would do N3 again. This time I tried to approach study in a more sustainable way, not to burn myself out, but also, not to learn as fast.
I started with WaniKani, I had a huuuge, 1500+ item wall of reviews waiting for me when I got back after having reset already.
…I made all the reviews in a single day.
Having seen that my accuracy was at over 90%, I got really motivated and I made it a point of mine to do WaniKani every day since.
In the meantime, I signed up for Italki and had a few lessons with a teacher. Having them made me realize how much behind I was with grammar and the fluidity of me speaking, so I just attended lessons and kept grinding more and more topics that were supposed to help me with JLPT.
I created a few trial accounts on Bunpro, made a few crams on them, and as soon as the trial was over, I’d make another account.
In October, I went to Japan, for the first time ever, and I tried my best to speak Japanese exclusively when I was there. I did a 山手線謎めぐり２０２４ by being really annoying and asking everyone around for hints (in Japanese) and heavily exploited my JR Pass going everywhere I felt like, jumping on Shinkansens completely spontaneously.
And then I returned, me and my friend ramped up practice ahead of December’s JLPT, Bunpro, WaniKani and Duolingo… and then the test destroyed me with how difficult it was xdd
It might have even been more difficult than in the summer of 2022, even though my Japanese felt much stronger. I might have passed, I don’t know yet, but the highlight is that I didn’t even get to three or four texts in the reading section, because I simply don’t read fast enough. Even though my reading speed increased significantly regardless ^^
As of January 2025, I signed up for B1.4 classes at a VHS in Berlin, and I got kicked out of the group after the first class, because I was apparently too good. I enrolled to a B2.4 group and I haven’t had my first classes yet, that’s next Monday ^^
I’m in the middle of playing through 新すばらしきこのせかい for a fourth year running, but I made huge progress on it on a plane to Japan, got to the second part of week 2, and my motivation kinda went away ^^
How's your life since then, Bidoof?
Berlin has become my favorite place on Earth, I love so many things about it. One of the predictions I’ve made in the last study thread, about me being able to use rail when I’m there by 2025, came true much faster than that and I’m in Nordrhein-Westfalen every two months, if not more often. I’ve travelled to maaany, maaany places in Europe, but even in Berlin itself, I’ve made a few precious friends.
I had a bit of a shock therapy going here, because as a neurodivergent woman, I was struggling to find other people I would connect with, but I managed to find a few other neurodivergent girls that wouldn’t stop yapping if you enable them and would just jump between topics every ten seconds, and my cheeks would never stop flushing and having a girls evening ranting while increasing speed and volume literally all the time is enough for me to be on cloud nine for the rest of the week. I love it when I’m about to fall asleep and one of my friends sends me a 17-minute voice message and I go like “welp, no sleep today” xddd
One of my friends is an enabler of mine as well, she goes like “wow thats so cool…” on everything that I tell her, and hearing her react like that makes me even more interested and excited in doing things such as studying Japanese. She’s also a polyglot, knowing French, Spanish, English, and learning German at the moment, so I’m sorry, I cannot fall behind, I’m learning languages now ^^
What about other languages?
I’m trying to integrate myself with the German society, which isn’t easy when you’re in Berlin and some people here don’t even speak German, even though they’re supposed to by now ^^
My number one problem with German language is that I can’t get myself excited much about learning it, and each time I sit properly in front of a textbook and go like, “it’s a German learning session now”, my thoughts start drifting to why I’m not studying Japanese instead. That being said, I consume it passively, and I spent a big part of 2022 and 2023 just consuming the language like a sponge. I did a B1 course, then did some B2, and then… joined a Betriebsrat and went to a Wirtschaftsausschuss training, and having realized I understand more than I thought, did one for Betriebsrat as well in Stuttgart. Am I fluent in German? Probably not, but more importantly, I’m achieving my language goal of participating in a language, rather than just learning it!
I wish I could get myself to regularly watching Tagesschau or even having German TV in the background the whole time, but I have a limited amount of spoons in a day, that might be one spoon too much I feel like ^^
I’m also really fascinated by Toki Pona and I did a few lessons on that, I have a feeling I want to become good at it eventually, especially since there are community events around it and Sonja Lang herself welcomed me in the community, but spoon theory again, we’ll see how it goes ^^
I’ve spent a month in Spain and got my Spanish to a proper A0, proud of myself, keep at it!
And Korean, I know how to read hangul now. I’m an MVP 
What are you doing here? Aren't you level 60????
Yeeeesss…ish…?
As it turns out, language is way more than just learning kanji, and also, language is a muscle that you have to keep practicing over time. I forgot a ton of kanji, but seeing them once or twice, and then seeing a definition and a reading again, makes it pretty easy for me to remember it again, so I’m just, cruising. Coasting. Remembering kanji.
Kanji are my favorite part of Japanese language, but also, I want to study in a bit more rounded-up way as well, so this time around I’m practicing other skills in addition to kanji.
What I used to do in the past was attempting to play video games in Japanese, I finished Origami King and Pokemon Shield in 2020, but haven’t played much stuff in Japanese since. Same with anime, I struggle to get myself into watching anime, because when I do, I try to guide myself to actively listening to dialogues, and it drains me somewhat. As a result of that, me writing this thread is another step in an attempt to get myself more and more interested in Japanese language again. I’ve been having pretty mixed results throughout 2023 and 2024, but the trend is still upwards, and I want to retain it for as long as possible. I just wish I had more spoons in the spoon theory a day. Brainrot as a concept is real ^^
How do you practice now?
As of writing this thread, I have a five-part regiment that I entertain every day.
- 15 lessons on WaniKani. You know, the “sustainable” speed xd
- 90-160 reviews of kanji a day on WaniKani. Basically, trying to end every day with a zero on the review tile.
- 3 new grammar points on Bunpro. Following the Tobira textbook path, even though I should have known N3 by now. I’ve only seen the grammar points, I don’t know how to use them fluently yet, so bit by bit, every day.
- 30-50 grammar reviews on Bunpro. There’s plenty of ghosts that follow me around, but I’m trying my best to just move a tiny bit each day, and seeing where it goes.
- exactly one lesson on Duolingo. I was trying to quit Duolingo, but that’s the only app I use right now where I can’t autopilot and I actively have to focus on what I’m listening to, so Duolingo still stays, even though it doesn’t help me that much.
I practice after 11pm of a given day, and my five-part grinding regiment takes about 40 minutes every day.
Every few days, I find myself wishing I had a few more tools around my belt: maybe doing some reading in a book club? Maybe reading a visual novel? Maybe finding a tandem partner? Maybe watching a Japanese TV 番組? But sadly, I currently don’t have the mental capacity to do so, so I don’t tend to do it very much. I’ve become really bad at deep focus and not being distracted with things, so that’s another muscle I’m attempting to practice while grinding! Oh well.
I hope that the weekly B2 course from Japanese will keep me engaged as well!
I don’t have any quantifiable language goals. One of my goals used to be to read the original 2000 月姫 in Japanese, but then I read the remake in English, and it kinda spoiled my plans. But, you know, who knows?
But for me, it’s not about having goals, it’s about being disciplined and becoming 0.01% better every day. Am I becoming 0.01% better every day? ^^
And in terms of the non-quantifiable goals… how does “being a part of a language” sound like? Rather than clear a video game or something, maybe join a japanese-only community? Maybe make a few Japanese friends? Maybe write a wiki post for a gacha game or something? Translate a manga panel, or do anime subs? It’s not quantifiable though, and I wouldn’t worry too much about it though ^^
How can you help me?
please please please keep me accountable of studying xddd
Also, if you see anything cool in Japanese language that made you go, like, uuuUuUuuuuU, let me know, I need to connect my neurodivergent hyperfixations to Japanese language. I know now many people will, but wouldn’t it be cool?
And as for where we are today:
Most likely, this time around, I will not be writing an entire diary in the format of a WaniKani forum thread, but I’d still like to follow in a certain template, such as:
January 8th
- 94 reviews on WaniKani
- 15 lessons on WaniKani
- 36 reviews on Bunpro
- 3 lessons on Bunpro
- 1 lesson on Duolingo
- Misc: two episodes of 薬屋のひとりごと (with English subs, can’t find Japanese anywhere)
(that’s the actual data for today btw ^^)
and keep on adding to that thread. I’ll try to keep unbrainrotting myself, and we’ll see where I end up!
Thank you very much for having read my post and I’ll hope I’ll keep posting here for a while C:
I hope you’re going to have an amazing day, and in case you’re also learning Japanese, let’s keep one another motivated and let’s have our language study based dreams come true!
